Dreamland: The summer's most 'dazzling and shattering' new novel

For fans of Children of Men Years and Years & Station Eleven a postcard from a future Britain thats closer than we think. A beautiful book: thought-provoking eerily prescient and very witty. Brit Bennett author of The Vanishing Half Water courses through its pages as rising sea levels heighten inequalities buoy populist politicians and wash away every certainty of civilisation. But theres also the novels prose its liquid grace and glinting sparkle and the sheer irresistibility of a narrative that sweeps along with a force that feels tidal in its pull. The Observer You said that you would come back. You looked me in the eye and said that. Well if you had this is what you would have seen: soft wood black cracks fridges in the road. The broken spines of old rides at Dreamland. In the coastal resort of Margate hotels lie empty and sun-faded For Sale signs line the streets. The sea is higher its higher everywhere and those who can are moving inland. A young girl called Chance however is just arriving. Chances family is one of many offered a cash grant to move out of London - and so she her mother Jas and brother JD relocate to the seaside just as the country edges towards vertiginous change. In their new home they find space and wide skies a world away from the cramped bedsits theyve lived in up until now. But challenges swiftly mount. JDs business partner Kole has a violent charismatic energy that whirlpools around him and threatens to draw in the whole family. And when Chance comes across Franky a girl her age she has never seen before well-spoken and wearing sunscreen something catches in the air between them. Their fates are bound: a connection that is immediate unshakeable and in a time when social divides have never cut sharper dangerous. Set in a future unsettlingly close to home against a backdrop of soaring inequality and creeping political extremism Rankin-Gee demonstrates with cinematic pace and deep humanity the enduring power of love and hope in a world spinning out of control. She vividly captures the balance between ferocity and vulnerability as the two girls explore their burgeoning desire; one minute theyre greedy for each other the next theyre proceeding more gingerly. Theirs is a great first love blazing bright and furious amid the poverty and the pain the perfect counterweight thats needed to make the novel sing. Dreamland brings us face-to-face with much of what were on the threshold of losing; nevertheless it manages to convince us that its characters have everything still to live for. The Guardian This brutal read has moments of hope and love but also serves as a hideous warning to fight for whats right Daily Mail Brilliantly bleak this compelling novel is horribly plausible chilling and feels like a warning thats come too late. Daily Mirror Chances life is filled with poverty crime drugs and fear until she meets Franky a girl unlike anyone else she knows. Their relationship brings light and love... Daily Express Rankin-Gees novel is a triumph being as much a love letter to the heady ups and crashing lows of youthful entanglements as it is a paean to the former grandeur of its stark coastal setting. Read this now. GQ A writer of a new time A writer we will all want to read again and again. Monique Roffey author of the Costa Book of The Year The Mermaid of Black Conch Dazzling and shattering" Nell Dunn author of Up The Junction and Talking to Women The writing clings like sand. Unexpected turns of phrase have burrowed deep into the recesses of my brain. She has created a vivid textural portrait teeming with life and granular sensory detail as well as wisdom. It does what the most haunting of apocalyptic novels do which is to shine a light on what is already happening around us and ask that we wake up. Olivia Sudjic author of Asylum Road Entrancing A dark and devastating funhouse ride through curtailed innocence and apocalyptic experience. And- most uniquely- a love letter to the waning magic and melancholy of British seaside towns. It is its own twist on the lucid dystopias of Diane Cook Kirsten Roupenian and Emily St John Mandel. The book is also deeply cinematic- I was reminded throughout of Terry Gilliams waterlogged neo-noir fantasy Tideland as well as the dreamy realism of the films of Andrea Arnold and Lynne Ramsay. Sharlene Teo author of Ponti Rankin-Gee is a visionary empath. Every page of this book both broke my heart and made me laugh out loud. What a feat! Jac Jemc author of The Grip of It and False Bingo